Series / Total Divas

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Total Divas is a reality show produced by the E! Network. It is similar in format to Keeping Up With The Kardashians and it revolves around the lives and careers of the WWE Divas. The women the show focuses on are:

Bella Twins - Nikki and Brie, twin sisters. Both are dating big stars in WWE, Nikki with John Cena and Brie with Daniel Bryan (real name Bryan Danielson). They do most things together but episodes explore the differences between them such as Nikki's body image issues and Brie's desire to move away. In 2014 Nikki became the first cast member to win the Divas' Championship while the show was airing.note A long standing rumour was that cast members couldn't hold the title due to the time difference of when episodes eventually air. And upon the title's retirement in 2016, that makes her the only one too.

The Funkadactyls - Naomi (real name: Trinity McCray) and Cameron (real name: Ariane Andrew). They act as dancers to Brodus Clay and are just making the transition to in-ring wrestlers. Like the twins, the show explores the differences between them - Trinity being more about the in-ring athleticism and Ariane being more about the glamour and character. Trinity has been removed and re-inserted from the cast several times, while Ariane was removed in Season 3 and got released in 2016.

Natalya - Nattie Neidhart, third generation Diva and Cool Big Sister to the rest of the cast. The series deals with her frequently feeling left out by the company and her troubled engagement to childhood friend Tyson Kidd (real name: TJ Wilson).

Eva Marie - a developmental Diva. Portrayed as very ambitious and desperate to make a name for herself, angering a lot of people in the company.

JoJo - another developmental Diva. Was the youngest out of all the Divas, being only nineteen (and below WWE's policy of wrestlers on the roadnote WWE does not call up wrestlers under the age of 21). Was replaced (perhaps due to this) for Season 2 by:

Summer Rae - new WWE diva best known for being the valet of Fandango. Removed from the cast in the latter half of season 3.

Alicia Fox - made a few guest appearances across the seasons before finally getting upgraded to regular in the latter half of season 3.

Paige - British Diva who previously wrestled on the indies and was immediately hot-shotted to a heated storyline with AJ Lee. Became a cast member in the latter half of Season 3.

Maryse - French-Canadian Diva married to The Miz and competed in WWE during the Bellas' first run. She returned in 2016 to act as a valet to her husband.

Lana - famous manager to Rusev, just making the transition to in-ring wrestler. She has played a Fake Russian for most of her career and kept Kayfabe beforehand - so the show marks the first time she has ever appeared out of character since debuting.

Renee Young - backstage announcer and current girlfriend of Dean Ambrose.

Mandy Rose - a contestant from the latest season of WWE Tough Enough and rookie Diva in training.

Alexa Bliss- First woman to hold the Smackdown and Raw Women's Championships.

The show has a balance between storylines and reality. On the one hand, it acknowledges that wrestling itself is scripted and breaks Kayfabe. On the other, the women clearly play up their onscreen characters and the show is used to further storylines on the main roster. In 2016 a spin-off series focusing entirely on the Bella Twins - Total Bellas - was produced.

"Divalicious Tropes":

A-Cup Angst: Ariane goes through this, considering getting a boob job. She decides against it, feeling it would be a Family-Unfriendly Aesop to send to her fans. Nikki Bella also went through the same and chose to get a boob job before the show aired.

Nattie and Cameron have this reaction when a cop has words with them in the season 2 premiere.

And again, Nattie crashes the car on purpose to avoid a drug test. Although Cameron is annoyed with her, she clearly finds it hilarious. As do the other Divas when they find out.

Aesop Amnesia: Ariane is supposed to be house sitting for Nattie and TJ, but nearly loses their cat, Louie, while holding a party at their house. After assuring them that Louie is safe and would end the party, Ariane instead enjoys the party. Trinity's reaction is similar to the viewers.

All Women Are Lustful: Ranges from superficial (the girls delightfully seeing a male striptease show, Nikki brings along a vibrator when John can't make it to Vegas) to dramatic (Nattie worrying that she and TJ haven't had sex since he got injured, Eva Marie takes off her engagement ring for a 'business meeting' with Fandango).

Artifact Title: WWE dropped the 'Diva' moniker in 2016 - something the show depicts happening - but the show still keeps the same title presumably for licencing reasons.

Ascended Extra: The show itself has caused the Divas to become this by making the WWE spend more time giving its Divas storylines (presumably for Total Divas to use later on when they're filming) than it normally does, due to Total Divas proving unexpectedly popular; while usually there is only one Diva feud going on, now we have AJ Lee versus Paige for the women's title, plus the Bella Twins's feud with Stephanie McMahon/The Authority, The Funkadactyls's bitter break-up, Summer Rae and Layla's situation with Fandango, and to a lesser degree (as they only show up together on the B-shows like NXT and Superstars), Natalya's marriage to Tyson Kidd getting rocky due to Kidd's losses. More than half the Divas's roster have storylines and now there are multiple Diva segments per each WWE main roster program, when before Total Divas, they were only allowed one, maybe two. Perhaps the crowning example is Brie Bella, who went from having no storyline at all to being currently embroiled in a prominent feud with Stephanie that was built up over several weeks before culminating in it being the central storyline of July 28, 2014's RAW, which is unbelievably rare for a Divas's feud.

Ascended Meme: Cameron's "Girl Bye" became the name of her finisher, got her a personalised t-shirt and was also the name of her first single. Brie also named one of her signature moves "Brie Mode" after what Nikki calls it when she gets too drunk.

This trope is likely the reason Nattie gets so worked up about accidentally peeing during one of her matches.

Showing how prominent this trope is in real life, Nikki gets a tooth knocked out in one of her matches. She avoids John for ages because she's terrified of his reaction (despite the missing tooth not even being a front one and barely noticeable).

Bi the Way: Rosa reveals that she's been with girls before and has no problem making a pass at Nattie on her birthday. Paige appears to be this as well; there have been photos of her kissing girls at parties. Notably when Rosa kisses her, Paige doesn't find it weird because Rosa is a girl - but rather because they're good friends.

Bitch Alert: Tyson/TJ's mother before she's even shown onscreen. TJ and Nattie are staying in their hometown of Calgary for Nattie's birthday week. They want a hotel to spend quality time together. TJ's mother phones them and demands they stay at her house (where she would make TJ sleep on the couch and Nattie share her bed). TJ caves and goes to her house, while Nattie refuses and stays in the hotel. When his sister makes an appearance later in the episode, this trope happens to her instead. It's never stated why but TJ makes plans for them to have dinner at his sister's on Nattie's birthday. Presumably the sister did a lot of pressuring.

Eva Marie tells producers that she has a background in ballet and ballroom dancing. She doesn't.

The show also tries to pass off segments on Main Event and Superstars as "live on Raw". It might work on E! viewers, but WWE fans can tell in a heartbeat. For the first one it's a little more justified since some Superstars matches are taped before Raw and it's likely producers don't want to confuse viewers.

Breakout Character: The Bella Twins have enjoyed the most mainstream success out of all the cast members, eventually leading to the Total Bellas spin-off.

Averted when it came to Nattie's wedding but very straight when it was Brie's turn. To the point where she was insisting on getting married on a ranch with no bathroom - and was considering having trees uprooted for more space.

Inverted with Trinity's wedding. It takes her forever to commit and set a date for the wedding. But when it rolls around, she's fine.

The Bus Came Back: Ariane returned to the show after spending time at NXT. JoJo also made a brief cameo in one Season 3 episode, Nikki calling "we miss that booty" after her.

Maryse's return to the WWE after a five-year absence from WWE. Made into a storyline involving the Bella Twins and a reneged agreement.

By the Hair: Sick of Summer trash talking, Nattie stops their car and drags Summer out of the backseat by her hair.

The Cameo: From various WWE employees in different episodes. Vince himself made an appearance on episode 7.

Camp Straight: The twins' brother JJ. He's married to their friend Lauren but he is quite camp - presumably due to growing up with two sisters and not having a father around much.

Canon Discontinuity: The hatred between most of the Divas and Eva Marie in season 4 now that she's actually started to train to become a better wrestler. There have been moments of antipathy between her and some of the other Divas since the show started, but those were relatively spread out and called for what they were, leading to more humanizing bonding moments (see the "Ariane outing Eva's past alcoholism" situation). In general, it seems that her arrogance of the first couple of episodes has given way to a more reasoned, relatable woman who's formed something of a bond with her more experienced coworkers. Except now, everybody save for Trinity—including former outcast Paige as well as Eva's once seemingly best friends the Bella Twins—considers her a traitor because she's getting praised for finally getting serious and training to wrestle after two years as well the fact that she's getting this training in her hometown with Brian Kendrick as opposed to going straight to the Performance Center in Orlando. To be fair, her training is on the company dime, so it makes sense they'd be a little upset, but treating her seemingly like a redheaded stepchild again overnight seems outright bizarre.

In all fairness, it's implied that Eva told them that she was going to the Performance Center/NXT, thus part of the animosity towards her is due to her lying. note Though she claims that she had told them that she would be in LA instead. Her instagram post note A lion does not worry herself with the opinion of sheep has only made things worse. Furthermore, with the acidic reception of her ring work and push on NXT, it's arguable the ladies simply never trusted that her training would be up to standard and perceived her as being gifted a road to success with minimal work.

Canon Foreigner: Jonathan and Vincent, the only two spouses who aren't members of the WWE roster.

Can't Get Away with Nuthin': When Nattie mistakenly eats a pot brownie, she frets that a drug test is right around the corner. Of course in this case it's quite justified since WWE's tests are designed to catch wrestlers out when they're using drugs on the road. And it's ultimately a subversion since Paige confesses it was just a joke - and any drug test Nattie takes would of course confirm that anyway.

Career Versus Family: Trinity alludes to this in the first episode. She says that she only has a few more years in WWE before she wants to raise a family. John Cena also cites this as the reason he won't have kids: he would have to take time off from WWE to raise them.

Career Versus Man: A justified example. Jojo's high school boyfriend gives her this ultimatum. In this case her career puts her on the road for most of the year and her man has to either accept he won't see her as often - or else end the relationship.

Christmas Cake: Nikki (who was 29 when the show premiered) voices her worry about getting married, afraid John Cena won't want to as he has recently divorced.

Also this could be a Berserk Button for Summer. Nattie gets slapped after she makes a crack about Summer still being single when she's nearly 30.

The City vs. the Country: A variation. Brie's apartment in sunny San Diego (and John Cena's palatial home in Florida) are contrasted with Bryan's modest house in damp wet Aberdeen, Washington. They eventually move to Phoenix instead.

Comically Missing the Point: Seems to be a thing with Brie. When she and Nikki follow John to his gym (suspecting him of cheating), Brie seems more concerned with the spelling of the word bonbons.

When Nikki finds out that her family talked to John about breaking it off with her, she chews them out. Whenever Nikki talks about them having lunch behind her back, Brie keeps correcting her that it was breakfast.

Continuity Nod: Brie's overreaction to the attempted break-in to her house (getting barbed wire put up around the fence) is very reminiscent of her excessive wedding preparations.

Continuity Snarl: Nattie's dislike of Summer Rae comes across as rather contrived and forced. Especially given that earlier season 1 episodes showed her to be very fond of the new girls and helping them out.

Control Freak: John Cena, apparently, once Nikki moves into his house, to the degree that he starts panicking about keeping the kitchen spotless when he finds Nikki making dinner. This might get explained when you remember that a very expensive, drawn-out, and frustrating home renovation had a lot to do with Cena's marriage coming apart. It doesn't completely excuse his behavior (he seemed especially ungrateful when Nikki cooked for him and acted like he didn't want the kitchen to ever be used for cooking at all,) but you can at least understand where he's coming from if you realize he might not be wanting history to repeat.

Corpsing: Nattie and Ariane/Cameron get into an argument while out drinking. A cop approaches them and warns them they'll be arrested if they get too rowdy. They go inside and immediately burst out laughing.

Daddy Didn't Show: Jon's father Rikishi is invited to his and Trinity's wedding but cancels due to a last-minute appointment.

Daddy's Girl: Trinity and Eva Marie are both quite close to their fathers. It's Played for Drama with both of them in separate episodes. Trinity's father comes to stay with her and Jon but oversteps his boundaries (and Trinity is reluctant to tell him). Eva also struggles with her father not approving of her relationship with Jonathan. Season 3 also reveals that her father is suffering from cancer and inevitably will die in a number of years.

Dark-Skinned Blonde: As the show was being taped, Ariane (who is black) added a two-tone caramel shade to her hair and lightened that to blonde. Maryse and Mandy Rose are white blondes who tan very darkly.

In latter half of season 1, Jojo is barely featured at all. Ditto for Summer and Trinity in season 3 - eventually being removed from the cast.

Played for Drama in season 3. Ariane is told that she may just become a valet to Trinity and debates about whether or not to go back down to developmental for more training - and therefore losing her main roster spot.

Nikki is also worried about this - when Brie gets a singles push while she's injured.

Disappeared Dad: The twins' father who split from their mother when they were fifteen. They are reunited on the show. Likewise Ariane is estranged from her father - and admits that it was a troubled relationship growing up.

Played with. The Funkadactyls Cameron and Naomi are called by their real names - Ariane and Trinity. Natalya is often just called Nattie onscreen anyway - and likewise 'Jojo' is just a nickname for Joseanne. The Bellas are referred to as 'The Bellas' as if it's their real name (though Brian does use Brie's real last name Garcia when he proposes). Eva Marie's real name is Natalie but is called Eva by everyone (even by Jonathan towards her family) - though her family does say Natalie a couple of times in the season 1 finale. Summer Rae is also called by her ring name rather than her real name Danielle. Alicia, Paige and Rosa are also called by their ring names, though the former is referred to as "Fox" or "Foxy". Most other WWE workers get called by their ring names save for a few.

If you listen closely at one point during Paige's debut episode, Nikki calls her "Raya". Some of her friends call her by her real name of (Sa)raya-Jade Bevis.

In an episode with an Alicia Fox/Rosa argument, a suddenly serious Alicia refers to the latter as "Roucka", her last name. Occasionally Alicia refers to her as "Rou" for short.

Eva Marie calls her brothers out on this. They refer to their Catholic faith when they find out Eva eloped with Jonathan. She retorts that they've been living unmarried with their girlfriends for years.

Brie likewise illustrates a double standard between Nikki and their brother. JJ accidentally texts a naked selfie of himself to Nikki. She's with their cousins at the time and shows everyone to have a good laugh. Brie and JJ try to explain to her why that is not okay. And to get revenge Brie uploads a very personal Valentine Nikki wrote to John to her instagram (against her will).

Fans have pointed out Paige's resentment of Eva due to her being a pretty face who does not know how to wrestle, despite being close friends with Rosa Mendes, who isn't the greatest wrestler herself despite being in the business much longer than Eva. Justified as Rosa is more or less a valet who, whenever she wrestles, is basically a Jobber while Eva is being groomed into a top spot note Particularly the Bellas', who were at the time planning to leave. within the Divas division.

Downer Ending: Rosa's last appearance in Season 5 is the aftermath of her fallout with her mother over her newborn daughter Jordan's religion. As this came before her retirement in early 2017 (thus possibly making this her final appearance), it fits.

Eva's final appearance in Season 6 is her being suspended for a Wellness Violation, effectively removing her from the 6-Woman tag match at Summerslam. She would then wait out the rest of her contract before officially leaving WWE (and the show).

Drama Queen: Maryse comes back to WWE with a three-year-old grudge and desire to stir up trouble.

Early-Bird Cameo: It's not uncommon for a Diva to appear in an episode before she's added to the main cast. Alicia Fox made several featured appearances before Season 3 added her. Renee Young and Lana too in Season 4.

Season 1 is the only season to have a set of opening credits - with soundbites from each cast member. Starting with Season 2, they just show the title graphic.

Season 1 also referred to most of the cast by their real names instead of their ring names. Eva Marie was the only one called by her ring name. Pretty much everyone gets called by their ring names starting from Season 2. This is referenced with those who debuted in Season 1 - as Ariane's title graphic will say 'Ariane/Cameron' for instance.

In early seasons Nikki's title graphic would show "Nikki." In later season, it would show "Nicole."

Nattie was portrayed as the Only Sane Man and a responsible Team Mom in the first season. Starting in the second season, relationship drama with TJ escalated and she started having rivalries with the newer Divas - completely at odds with her portrayal in the early episodes.

Season 2 was the only season to have the incidents on the show used to set up matches on Raw the next night. Presumably due to the difficulties with the set-up - Raw is taped live and Total Divas tapes months in advance - this was phased out in Season 3.

Lana stayed in character when she appeared in Season 4, and she can be heard doing her Russian accent when Paige meets her in the bar. When she becomes a cast member, she uses her real voice.

Elopement: What Eva Marie and Jonathan did, due a situation snowballed out of control between Eva and her family. What TJ suggested Nattie do (and something they actually did in real life).

Everything's Better with Sparkles: The Funkadactyls sure love their sparkly ring gear. Trinity especially when she shoots a music video. She has a catsuit covered with rhinestones and balks when she sees that only the front has them - and pulls an all-nighter to cover the back with them too.

Evil Twin: Nikki is portrayed as being this compared to Brie. Funnily enough whenever the two were pit against each other on WWE TV, Nikki usually played the heelnote Aside from Team Teddy vs Team Johnny for Wrestle Mania 28 where Nikki finally got to be the face.

Failed Audition Plot: Inverted. The second episode builds towards an audition that we know is doomed to fail.

Fanservice: Lots and lots of it. Especially one episode which has Nikki and Nattie modelling lingerie for each other and Ariane walking around with boob implants.

Foregone Conclusion: Several episode plots end up as this for people watching WWE and keeping up with the women's personal lives on Twitter, Instagram etc.

Eva Marie clearly isn't going to become a blonde and management are obviously going to be fine with it - since she already appeared on WWE programming with her red hair. Also she's not going to make it to TV as Fandango's dancer - nor does she get into too much trouble for her audition, given that Summer Rae had been appearing as his valet for months.

Trinity isn't going to be Divas' Champion, since her eye injury was well-publicised a couple of months before the show aired.

Nattie isn't going to take time off work to heal her nose - since she was featured pretty much weekly in between TLC and season 2's premiere.

The Bellas are going to renew their contracts and Brie isn't going to get pregnant - since Nikki was already Divas' Champion by the time the episode aired.

Ariane's erratic temper is the result of growing up in a household where her mother and (now divorced) stepfather fought a lot.

Nikki appears to be such a massive pervert because when she was younger, she saw two dogs stuck together by their own semen.note Which is actually incorrect- all male canines have a knot on their penis, which is what actually holds them together while mating.

"Friends" Rent Control: Shot to hell when Ariane and Vincent are house hunting. The first house Nikki shows them is over $2 million and the second is $1.39 million. Ariane has to remind Nikki that even she wouldn't be able to afford such a house if she didn't have John Cena's salary to think of.

When Ariane is considering a boob job, she's given a pair of silicone implants to "test drive". Hilarity Ensues - they fall out while she's in the pool, her boyfriend names them, Brie tries them on and she ends up having to go out on TV with only one in.

Rosa joins the cast after just having hers enhanced. She has no shortage of jokes about them. Paige and Alicia compare a pair of motorcycle helmets to them, and they're not far off.

Genki Girl: Alicia Fox, if her first confessional is anything to go by.

Girls' Night Out Episode: The episode featuring a trip to Vegas for Nattie's bachelorette party. Despite being a show about the women, it's still a straight example as TJ's bachelor party happened alongside it but the show only focused on the women.

The Glorious War of Sisterly Rivalry: After Nikki gets injured, she feels very threatened by Brie's singles push on TV and worries that she'll be forgotten about. Also earlier when Brie and Bryan wanted to move cities, which Nikki got annoyed about. They also frequently snipe at each other.

Gold Digger: Nikki is often thought to be this. Even Brie and Bryan comment on her loving the expensive gifts John gets her. Despite that though, she seems to genuinely love and care for him - to the degree where she ultimately chooses to stay with him even if it means she might never have children.

All of the girls, but Natalya especially, towards Summer Rae's casting in The Marine 4.

Hard-Drinking Party Girl: Nikki loves her wine though it's actually Brie who becomes more of a mess when they go out. Nattie seems to be one too.

Hidden Depths: Surprisingly after Eva Marie's disastrous attempt at being Fandango's new girl, she displayed more maturity and sense than she had previously shown. Character Development people.

Hilarity Ensues: What else would ensue when Nattie's painting won't fit inside her car and she has to strap it to the roof?

Honorary True Companion: Alicia Fox seems to get a lot of scenes with the girls, to the point that many fans were hoping she'd be upgraded to full-time cast member in season 2. She has, however, become a guest host with Renee Young for After Total Divas, a recap show WWE posts on Youtube. She was finally announced as a cast member for the fourth season.

After Alicia became a cast member, Emma seems to be filling this role.

Hypocrite: Nattie complaining about Eva Marie being asked to dye her hair blonde because she herself is also blonde. Does she really think people aren't going to tell the two of them apart if they have the same hair colour? Eva Marie did resemble the Bellas but even with blonde hair she wouldn't look like Nattie.

Hilarious in Hindsight: Nattie previously dyed her hair a different colour because she felt there were too many blonde Divas. She went the same colour as Eva - redhead.

Eva Marie also complains about Jojo trying to use singing to get on the show, accusing her of not really caring about being in WWE for the wrestling. In the first two episodes, Eva Marie says she doesn't want to train or spend time learning how to wrestle and tries to get on the roster as Fandango's dancing partner, and throughout season 1 she takes opportunities to get on the show as a valet and as a ring announcer rather than as a wrestler.

This is a reoccurring issue with Nikki. She is hurt over John hiding that he has a sex scene in his movie despite being guilty of hiding things from him herself. Also, she was pissed at Brie for interfering with her relationship with John. Only a few episodes later she's trying to interfere with Brie and Bryan's sex life. Brie even lampshades this.

I Am Not Pretty: Eva gets this in one of the season 3 episodes - as she's been unable to exercise too much after her operation.

Eva Marie in general deals with this quite a bit, as it becomes clear she has some serious issues with body-image. When she's finally taken to a counselor, they perform an exercise where she describes what she sees in a mirror to a sketch artist, and then the counselor's co-worker does the same. Comparing the two (essentially what she sees vs. what everybody else sees) is startling and heart-breaking.

I Was Young And I Needed The Money: This is initially what people think about Eva's raunchy pictures that Ariane shows to the locker room. It turns out Eva was battling alcoholism at the time.

Informed Ability: Trinity cops on to Eva's supposed dancing experience being this when Eva says she can't do the splits. Any trained dancer would have the flexibility to do the splits.

The Ingenue: Jojo is presented as this, being younger than the other girls.

Insult Backfire: In one episode, Brie is giving Nikki a lot of grief for her excessive spending on clothing and accessories and pushes her into seeing a financial planner. When they get there, however, the situation turns back around and the planner starts to lecture Brie, who had no backup plan for when their careers end, unlike Nikki who already has a real estate license.

Lysistrata Gambit: Played with and given a Gender Flip. Brie is able to make Nikki show her missing tooth to John by reminding her of how long it has been since they've had sex.

Manipulative Editing: Especially between breaks, when one thing that what was shown in the preview before the break, and the "One The next..." doesn't match when we actually see it. Also, certain things that happened on Raw or Smackdown, are let out of the Total Divas airing. Such as Daniel Bryan winning the WWE title, but failing to show the aftermath with Triple H and Randy Orton.

Never My Fault: Nikki, after promising Brie that she'd tell John about her previous marriage before Brie's wedding, subsequently lies to Brie & JJ (The twins' brother) by saying she had told John when she hadn't. When JJ subsequently compliments John on his reaction to the news, Nikki gets upset at him for telling John whilst both of her siblings point out that Nikki had said she was going to tell John and that she had told him.

Ariane has this attitude towards the new gear fiasco in episode 2. To the point where she won't apologise for offending Sandra - even when Sandra offers to fix their gear.

The season 2 previews made it seem like Summer slapped Natalya for calling her a stripper. It actually happens because Nattie makes a crack about Summer still being single at her age.

Summer Rae and Fandango's date is made of this due to Season 2 editing. The "Somethin-somethin'" is yet to be revealed.

Season 3 trailers featured a tense discussion between Mark Carrano and Ariane where he says "you won't be a Diva any more". Of course in the actual episode, it's a hypothetical discussion about if Ariane were to go back down to NXT and train.

Season 3 also showed Brie asking to borrow money from Nikki and John, making it seem like she was struggling financially. In the actual episode she only asked to borrow money to help start up a possible B&B project.

Summer going on a date with Gary, a guy Rosa had been casually seeing, is hugely hyped up. A big deal is made of a clip of Rosa saying "I am this close to hitting her" and it's even used as a Cliff Hanger Twist Ending. Aside from one minor altercation between Rosa and Summer, it's immediately forgotten about - and Rosa has already moved onto dating someone else.

A really egregious example when it comes to TJ's photo shoot. Nattie is shown being a little uneasy about the sexy female models posing with her shirtless husband. Previews for the rest of the episode have Nattie seemingly saying "I need to shut this party down." Of course when the clip actually airs, what Nattie really says is that her old self would have shut the party down - and she learns An Aesop.

Nice Job Breaking It, Hero!: Brie wanted to get a bus, after seeing Nikki's and John's bus and managed to talk Bryan in to it by getting the rest of the cast to join them. With a few rules (no poopingnote probably because the bus was equipped to handle it, and no sexnote Well, no boner, but still. It didn't last long as the rest of the crew treated it as a party bus, Nattie was caught pooping, and Brie caught Naomi and Jimmy in the act. After that, no more bus.

Maryse later tries to do the same thing for Miz but he's trying to win a fantasy football game so they end up haggling to figure out how long til he has to turn around and see her.

Not So Above It All: Despite Trinity (and sometimes Nattie) being the reasonable and responsible one, she has a way of sometimes getting sucked into the madness too.

Oh, Crap!: WrestleMania XXX was a string of them - first, when the Divas match was moved from third on the card to the penultimate spot on the card, as that was the same spot they had the year before before the match was cut from the show due to timing issues. Then, when they were going out for the match, the Divas all realised they were in one of the worst spots in WWE history as they had to follow the end of the Undertaker's streak.

Old Shame: In-universe example where Eva has some raunchy pictures from her past.

Some segments on WWE programming that makes little sense why they would occur we find out here why. An 8 mixed tag match between Tons of Funk with the Funkadactyls vs The Bella Twins and The Usos, the latter being heels teaming with faces. This was a segment done for Total Divas.

A meta example. During the Winter of 2013 there were rather a lot of random 6-Diva tag matches featuring the cast - usually the Bellas and Natalya. The amount of 6-Diva tags make more sense when they show up as necessary stock footage in season 2.

When WWE did their annual "spring cleaning," a number of mass firings that occur every year right around Wrestlemania, one of the more surprising firings of 2014 was Aksana, who had had several matches recently on television and was involved somewhat in a storyline with the Divas Champion Paige. It was suspected at the time that Aksana was fired over Rosa Mendes (who was never a major player in the Divas Division to begin with, having never won a televised match by her own admission, and had made almost no appearances on TV for months,) because the producers at E! wanted Rosa for Total Divas. Later confirmed when she joined the cast for Season 3.

One-Hour Work Week: It can sometimes come across this way, as the girls will more often be shown at home and having plenty of time to have lunch and socialise - despite being on the road for most of the year. Of course this is all down to editors only showing the times the girls do have time to do fun stuff - as showing the girls on planes and long car journeys isn't very exciting TV.

One Steve Limit: Averted with Nikki's boyfriend John Cena, Trinity's boyfriend-turned-husband Jon Fatu, and Eva's boyfriend-turned-husband Jonathan Coyle. Also Josie is the name of Eva Marie's mother and of Brie's pet dog. Played straight in the sense that Eva Marie's real name is Natalie. She is referred to by her stage name the entire time, presumably to avoid confusion with Natalya — whose real name is also Natalie (though is always called Nattie).

Pretty much the girl who isn't getting the focus of whatever episode becomes this to the rest. Most frequently among the women this role goes to Trinity, though even Eva Marie and Ariane have occasionally taken it up.

John Cena also seems to function solely to tell Nikki to stop being so immature.

Daniel Bryan, full-stop. Brie makes him sammiches.

As of Season Six, Rusev is falling quickly into this trope. Especially compared to Lana.

Operation: Jealousy: A minor example. Nattie gets jealous when she sees Eva training with TJ — so she does some training with a (shirtless!) Fandango a few rings down to get back at them.

Plenty of Blondes: Inverted. Management feels there are too many brunettes and wanted Eva Marie to become a blonde to fix that.

Polar Opposite Twins: The show plays this up with the Bellas. Brie is calm and sensible while Nikki is more aggressive and passionate.

Poor Communication Kills: The third episode in season two deals with Nikki suspecting John Cena of cheating on her. He gets up and walks away from Nikki while answering a phone call from a woman. He closes his laptop and locks his phone whenever Nikki might see. And most damning of all, he lies about paying a visit to the gym when in reality he was nowhere near it. In the meantime, Nikki has passed her real estate agent's exam and was showing clients a high-end beachfront home in San Diego. After confronting John about her suspicions, she heads off to her new job thinking to resolve things later, but then John shows up at the property she's showing. He tells her, "There's no other way to say this. I went to see another woman. Her name is Sarah. She's an escrow agent. I wanted to find out about this place. I wanted to do it without you knowing. I've decided I want to buy it."

Precious Puppy: Brie and Bryan's dog Josie — the one they consider moving cities for. Ariane and Vincent also have one — that apparently gets her nails done.

Protagonist-Centered Morality: Seems to be the case whenever someone has a problem with Nattie. The show presents it in a way that we're supposed to take Nattie's side, but the facts speak for themselves:

She abruptly dislikes Summer Rae for no real reason other than that she thinks Summer is being fake. While Summer does act like a Troll, half the time she's responding to a taunt from Nattie. And in season 3, she initiates all the conflict with Summer.

All the drama in her marriage to TJ seems to be caused mostly by her Hair-Trigger Temper. While TJ is admittedly a little clueless when it comes to being romantic, Nattie reacts to everything by blowing up at him. Whenever he tries to make amends (and it's always him having to do that) — she always gets annoyed with him that he's not doing more. What's odd is that WWE TV presents Tyson Kidd as the heel, playing the aloof husband to Natalya's good wife. On the show it seems like it's the other way around.

And after Paige plays a prank on her, making her think she's eaten a pot brownie. Bear in mind that once Paige realised how much Nattie was freaking out, she immediately confessed and apologised. She also said she would pay for the damage suffered to Nattie's car as a result. Nattie is still mad at her because of the disrespect, despite Paige having immediately accepted responsibility and trying to make amends.

Put on a Bus: JoJo, who only appeared in season 1. It was willingly done as she wanted to focus more on her wrestling training. Ariane willingly underwent this in season 3.

Ariane is a more aggressive and loud Red to Trinity's calmer and more sensible Blue.

Total Divas' version of CJ Perry/Lana is the Red Oni to WWE's. Due to emotional swings and rapid hysterics over situations.

Refuge in Audacity: Nikki Bella is a massive massive pervert. And she's also kind of brilliant with how open she is about it. She owns six vibrators and claims she needs them whenever John is away for too long (and brings one along for a trip to Vegas). She has no problem making jokes about her private parts. And then another episode reveals she loves looking at a reflection of herself while doing it with John.

Replacement Goldfish: After Gismo's death, Nattie and TJ get another kitten called Louis. Played with in that they already had a second cat.

Romantic Two-Girl Friendship: Eva Marie and JoJo. Two episodes deal with them having Odd-Couple like issues and a potential "break-up". The Funkadactyls as well. Trinity affectionately calls Ariane "baby girl".

There's one scene where a breast implants consultant bares her breasts to Ariane and Trinity and lets them cop a feel. She even does the same for Trinity's fiance, Jon AKA Jimmy Uso, by flashing him and letting him feel her breasts.

During season two it's revealed that Summer Rae sometimes her already revealing dresses altered to show more leg and cleavage.

Nattie says that Rosa's idea of dealing with heartache is "throw on a push-up bra and show everything off".

In the the third season finale, Rosa pulls down her pants and exposed her crotch to Paige and Alicia. It was for a waxing, but she still did it without even a hint of hesitation.

Shirtless Scene: John Cena and Bryan Danielson for the sake of a wood-chopping contest.

Sir Swears-a-Lot: All of the women swear, but Paige is the worst offender. It seems like every third to fifth word she says is bleeped.

Spicy Latina: Eva Marie, who is Mexican-Italian, describes herself as such. Nikki appears to be a straight example too (same ethnicity) though she doesn't play one on TV (the Bellas are more Alpha Bitch than Spicy Latina).

Stage Names: The show zigzags on this, where some performers are known entirely by their stage names. If they're outside the main cast and not dating a cast member, they'll usually go by their stage names. The Bellas and Renee Young are marginal examples, as only their last names are different.

Ariane intends to get new gear for herself and Trinity with this trope in mind. It works a little too well. See Wardrobe Malfunction.

Showing the realistic effects of this trope, Sandra warns Eva about her shorts being too low cut. She gives a similar lecture earlier when Summer tries this trope.

Stay in the Kitchen: Implied with Vincent's father regarding Ariane. He doesn't like that she's on the road most of the week, leaving Vincent alone. He's basically two steps ahead of them, wanting them to get married, despite it has never come up between the two. It's also implied he's pushing Vincent to propose, which he was sorta did, he took her to a jewelry store to look at rings, in which she freaked out and the two decided to take a break. They got back together before Nattie's wedding, due to a health scare.

Stepford Smiler: Nattie has to do a public appearance and autograph signing while she's worried sick about Ariane losing her cat — and after a blazing row with TJ.

Sugary Malice: What Summer's attempts to apologize to Brie and Nattie devolve into. Culminates when Summer makes an unannounced visit to Nattie's house, get the apologies out of the way, and then starts in on accusing Nattie, in just the sweetest voice, of being threatened by the new crop of Divas and of wasting years of her own career. When Nattie comes back with a dose of Brutal Honesty of exactly why the rest of the women's locker room doesn't care for Summer and her antics, Summer slaps her right across the face.

Team Mom: Nattie is portrayed as this in Season 1, but that trait vanishes by Season 2. Sandra the seamstress seems to fill this role for the girls. For Season 6, Renee Young fills this role.

Technician vs. Performer: One episode illustrates this between The Funkadactyls. When they're trying to choreograph some new dance moves for themselves, Trinity favours fancy looking dance steps - while Ariane wants to incorporate personality and sex appeal. Of course Trinity may be a trained dancer - but Ariane isn't and the routine has to have them both in sync.

The show arguably has the cast divided into these two, with some girls being better wrestlers and others having more character. Nattie and Trinity would lean towards the Technician side - being gifted technical wrestlers and very athletic. JoJo would likely fall under Technician too, if one looks at clips of her training and snippets of matches; she is quite athletic. Divas with less ring experience but more character would include Ariane and Rosa. The Bellas would have begun the show as mainly Performers but notably improved their wrestling a lot to qualify for the Technician side too. Summer Rae is shown to have talent in the ring but is primarily known for her character and sex appeal - making her more of a Performer.

The newer Divas would avert this. Alicia Fox was brought in as a Performer but has wrestled long enough to be considered a Technician too. Paige meanwhile is a trained Technician from the British independents - but is popular mainly for her gimmick, making her a Performer as well.

The Teetotaler: Eva Marie doesn't drink, and we've seen a couple examples of it. First during the house warming party she and Jojo had for the rest of the cast, then when they where in Vegas for Nattie's bachelorette party; she hung out with Jojo, who was too young to drink. It's revealed in season two that she is a recovering alcoholic. Rosa is this of course, since she's also a recovering alcoholic.

Eva Marie, particularly in the first few episodes. There is a whole list of infractions that would get almost any other wrestler in the company released if it weren't the show's resident crash test dummy doing them:

In the pilot episode, her very first impression with WWE creative is to completely disregard their instructions on her hair color note She admittedly had a point. Going in, she has an already sexy and distinctive brown color with red highlights and was told to dye her hair blond, which would do absolutely nothing for her complexion. Instead, she went with Rhianna fire station red, an improvement over blond but still a downstep from her original color. .

Next, she wanted to take a shortcut to get on camera by insinuating that she has a background in ballet and ballroom dancing in order to get an on-screen position as Fandango's escort/manager. A fair amount of planning goes into this until she has her audition and fails miserably, after not even bothering to use the time leading up to the audition to get a single dancing lesson. Fandango himself looks fairly disgusted with the whole affair, the creative staff is flabbergasted and has to find a replacement for the dancer role, and Stephanie Mcmahon herself takes Eva to task for wasting so many people's time. note Stephanie's on-screen anger is mostly staged, but Eva didn't know that at the time. Still, as the person in charge of the creative division, she had to have been pissed to some degree at Eva for causing such a distraction.

In an attempt to throw something against the wall to see if anything would stick, Eva was given a ring announcer's role for a match during Raw. Despite having most of a week to memorize a half dozen names and billed locations, she still mangles a lot of names, including "Ginger Mahal" in 3MB, which to him is a Berserk Button. note This makes sense. He is an entirely disposable mid-carder who might be dropped at some point and never be seen again, so every television appearance he has is valuable. So someone butchering his name, to him, is showing him a distinct lack of respect.

Eva finds out she might have silicone leaks in her implants - and continues to wrestle. She doesn't finally take time off to get them removed until the Bellas call her out on it.

Trailers Always Spoil: The first episode really tries to wait until the last minute when it comes to Eva's hair situation. They try to keep it a mystery as to whether or not she will go blonde. Except every single trailer showed Eva with her red hair. This also undermines the whole 'will the office like it?' mystery.

Trauma Conga Line: Bryan Danielson had to go through one while the show was airing. His father passed away, he suffered a career-ending injury and had to retire after a lengthy absence. Brie also confesses that she didn't realise he lost all his immediate friends - since he was no longer on the road travelling with them.

Traumatic Haircut: Eva Marie freaks out on the first episode when management has her dye her hair blonde. She eventually is unable to go through with it and decides to Take a Third Option - she becomes a redhead instead. What's more is that Eva revealed in an interview that she had literally gotten her hair done the day before. The office had asked her to streak her hair - and then weren't happy, so they then asked her to go blonde.

Those Two Girls: Three pairs of them, in fact. The only one who isn't is Natalya.

The Unapologetic: Cameron when it comes to the Funkadactyls fake gear. She refuses to apologise to Sandra for going behind her back to get new gear.

The Unfair Sex: The series likes to play up relationship woes whenever they appear, presenting them in a way that attempts to be sympathetic to the divas' side even if the issues are a bit more even than would warrant the one-sided view. However, because this is a reality show and not a scripted program with clear heroes and villains, it doesn't quite work so well.

First we have Nikki and John Cena's relationship. Quite a few fans buy into Nikki's strife of wanting John to commit to marriage even though he's actually being forthcoming with his feelings on the matter.

Similarly, we have the aforementioned issues between Nattie and TJ. Aside from it coming across as drastically overblown in context, Nattie's myopia regarding their relationship problems became so clearly inconsiderate of her husband's side that it was eventually called out in-universe by Trinity sitting her down and reminding her not to take her frustrations out on the good-hearted man who loves her.

Then there's the situation between Paige and Emarosa vocalist Bradley Walden. Bradley wanted a relationship with Paige, but she was hot and cold about getting together with him to the point it frustrated him, and shortly after they fought about it it was revealed to be because she'd been hurt in a past relationship. Fox and Rosa convinced her to give him a chance and that he wouldn't be like the person that hurt her, at which point she accepted him. Shortly thereafter she immediately wanted to move in with him, guilting him into it unintentionally yet pushing on after he said yes despite his obvious reluctance. While visting his family, she then found out that he'd already been married in the past and was just as uncomfortable talking about it as he was hesitant in telling his parents of their plans to move in together. Instead of either Paige or the show realizing he didn't want to move too fast into something that could be a repeat of whatever his past marriage was, she threw a fit and accused him of being a whiner and the show has generally taken her side on this. How was this eventually followed up? She would explain the following season that he'd dumped her via text message, essentially writing him off the show as a jerkass ex to the most popular Diva in WWE.

Unusual Euphemism: Trinity for her crotch showing - "all my cookies are hanging out". Cue thousands of "hand in the cookie jar" jokes online. Several episodes later she gave us the reverse. Her boobs are her "potatoes".

Sandra's way of telling Eva that her crotch could be in danger of showing? "Miss Lucy is all over the shop"

Very Special Episode: One episode deals with Ariane trying to stop her younger brother from spending time with gangs.

Wardrobe Malfunction: Two variations. Ariane has new gear designed for her and Trinity but does not get Trinity's measurements - resulting in her crotch being on full display. Secondly Nikki robs one of Ariane's silicone boobs out of her costume, leaving her very...erm...uneven.

Trinity has a much straighter example when filming her music video. The see-through catsuit she's wearing rips in the middle of a scene. She also suffers a Hairstyle Malfunction during another take.

Eva Marie gets warned that she's in danger of having one due to her shorts being too skimpy. Or as Miss Sandra puts it "Miss Lucy is all over the shop".

Happens to Rosa during a match, where Layla pulls her by the tights and accidentally exposes her ass. Although she's wearing flesh-coloured thong panties, she's hugely embarrassed. She considers invoking this for Raw to boost her followers - but immediately realises that there's no way she could get away with it.

The mid-season finale revolved around Nattie and TJ's wedding. Though it was strongly implied by many WWE talents that Nattie and TJ had eloped beforehand and that the ceremony was a gesture to their friends and family.

Trinity married Jon Fatu around season 2 mid-season.

The second half of the season 2 finale revolved around Brie & Bryan's.

Eva Marie finally got in on it at the end of season 3. She and Jonathan had already eloped - so the ceremony was done for her family.

JoJo's disappearance following her Demotion to Extra in the latter half of season 1, is not addressed, as they just introduced Summer.

A big deal is made of someone going to Mark Carrano and telling him about Rosa considering a live Wardrobe Malfunction. Rosa suspects Alicia, but she says she didn't and they wonder which of the other girls did. Nothing ever comes from this and we don't find out who told.

What the Hell, Hero?: Stephanie McMahon of all people delivers this to the Funkadactyls. She reminds them that they are representing the company whenever they are out in public - and that their Cat Fight was both childish and could have generated negative publicity for them.

Ariane of all people does this to Nattie. The latter thinks she's eaten a pot brownie by accident, and drug tests are about to happen. Nattie frets that she can't take the test - so she crashes the car. Admittedly it's just into a dumpster and the car is only barely scratched, but Ariane still rightfully calls Nattie out on how insane it was.

Worked Shoot: The show seems to be mixing this in, making fans wonder what parts are staged and which are genuine.

They also do this with the wrestling itself, as much as it's included. Sometimes it seems to act like wrestling is a real competitive sport (e.g. they oddly seem to treat the Daniel Bryan/Cena match like that outcome wasn't predetermined and like the match was "real"note Though it could be that the Bellas just didn't know who would be winning), whereas sometimes it sticks more to the worked shoot line of, "Oh, no, wrestling is staged, but this thing that happened in the ring was real," (e.g. Nattie getting mad and actually shoving Naomi/Trinity in their match). Other times they more or less acknowledge wrestling being all scripted.

Subverted when it comes to the Bella Twins turning on each other. Savvy wrestling fans expected the show to present Nikki's Face–Heel Turn as a legit unscripted moment, and the previews were edited in a way to make it look so. However before it happens we have a part where Nikki excitedly tells Paige that it's going to happen.

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